Tigers Beat St. Vincent’s 21-0, Prepare For Buldogs
Massillon Gridders Win Sixth Contes On Long Touchdown Runs
By LUTHER EMERY
Having defeated Akron St. Vincent’s 21-0 to end a three-game losing streak and annex their sixth victory of the season, the Washington high Tigers today began preparations for the 52nd game between Washington high school and Canton McKinley which will be played Saturday afternoon in Fawcett stadium before a capacity throng of some 25,000 people, Massillon has won 22, McKinley 24 and five ended in a tie.
While the Tigers were having a difficult time measuring the so-called in-and-out St. Vincent’s team Saturday afternoon, the Bulldogs warmed up for the contest by whipping Lakewood 20-6 in a mud battle in the northern Ohio city. The victory was the eighth in nine games for the Bulldogs who have been beaten only by Canton Lincoln high.
Coaches “Bud” Houston of Massillon and “Bup” Rearick of McKinley, won under wraps and both substituted freely, though the lead over St. Vincent’s did not reach the point of sufficiency early enough to permit the Tiger coach to send in substitutes in wholesale numbers as he had hoped to do.
As a result, quite a few of the boys will undoubtedly finish the season without having participated in a single game.
The smallest crowd of the season and one of the smallest to see a home game since the Tigers rose to power 13 years ago was scattered through the stands for the St. Vincent’s game.
It is doubtful if the figure reached 4,000.
The outcome was a duplicate of the Barberton-Massillon game to reverse.
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ST. VINCENT’S which pushed the Tigers over the gridiron a considerable portion of the afternoon, had momentary lapses that Massillon gridders took advantage of and romped to three touchdowns.
The first was a 73-yard return of an intercepted pass by Dick Jacobs which ended an Irish scoring threat and the other two were jaunts by Halfback Al Brown, a 91-yard runback of the St. Vincent’s kickoff that opened the second half and a 28-yard fourth quarter jaunt that buttered the bread with more points. Gene Schludecker booted all three extra points from placement and that briefly tells the story of the scoring.
Although from a spectator’s standpoint the Tigers appeared the stronger team and looked like the usual Massillon team the week before a Canton McKinley game when more attention is focused on the Bulldogs than the opponent at hand, play from a standpoint of offense was fairly equal. The Irish gained more first downs, eight to five and gained within two yards of the local team on the ground and in the air. Total offense was 157 yards for Massillon and 155 for St. Vincent’s while net offensive was 143 to 108 respectively.
The Irish came out with a lot of fancy plays from their T and double wing-back systems and many were executed with precision timing to the delight of the spectators.
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WHILE the visitors never got close to the Massillon goal, they took the center of the Tiger line apart frequently and worked a number of nifty passes between the 30-yard markers.
Once they marched from their own 15 to the Tiger 24, a distance of 61 yards which stopped with Jacobs snaring one of Johnny Cistone’s passes in the flat and scampering 73 yards for his first period touchdown. Jake roared through with the ball at top speed and surprised many Tiger fans with his fast footwork as he hoofed it for the goal line.
The visitors got inside the Tiger 30 again in the third period but lost the ball on a fumble on the first play of the fourth quarter. Except for these two occasions, the Irish seldom got by midfield.
The Tigers had troubles of their own moving the ball which helps account for the Irish getting more first downs than the local team. Eight passes were thrown, but only one of the eight hit its mark. Not all were the fault of the passers, however. There were two occasions when the receivers should have caught the ball.
St. Vincent’s followers seemed to think after the game that their team had one of its better afternoons. The Irish have been in-and-outers this season and have played a lot of good football. They had a little more success with their forward passes than did Massillon, completing six of 16 for 52 yards.
While Brown was the Tigers’ out-standing offensive star by virtue of his two touchdown runs, the defensive burden was born by Julius Wittmann, who has played a whale of a lot of football the past three weeks. Defensively, he several times stopped St. Vincent’s ball carriers before they could get started and occasionally tossed them for losses.
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IN MARKED contrast to the small crowd that saw the Massillon-St. Vincent’s game, the largest crowd ever to see a Massillon-Canton McKinley contest will turn out for this week’s game in Fawcett stadium. The regular and temporary seating capacity of the stadium is being augmented this week by additional seats from Massillon which will be erected in front of the southwest stands.
Whatever strategy the coaches of the two teams have devised from scouting reports as a means of beating each other will be passed on to their respective squads this week.
Both teams will practice through Thursday, hold a brief warm-up Friday and then settle down to await the opening kickoff.
Canton McKinley by virtue of its better record and especially because of its one-sided victories over Warren and Steubenville, is favored to win. The Bulldogs whipped Warren 32-7 and Steubenville 48-6, while Warren beat Massillon 20-13 and Steubenville gave the Tigers the hardest kind of a scrap before bowing 13-12.
However, players have a habit of rising to great heights in Massillon-Canton games to play their best of the season and hopes for a Massillon victory ride with this kind of performance. The McKinley record isn’t sufficiently impressive to scare anyone, for the Bulldogs were beaten 7-6 by Canton Lincoln which was defeated 13-7 by Massillon, and both teams played an almost identical game with Alliance, the Tigers winning 20-6 and McKinley 20-7.
Sixth Victory
MASSILLON – 21 POS. AKRON ST. VINCENT’S – 0
E. Johnson LE Wahl
Eberhardt LT Cox
Williams LG McGrath
Olenick C Costello
Houston RG Goehler
Wittmann RT Blanco
Roderick RE Haas
Hill QB Brown
Jacobs LH Pitts
Brown RH Goyle
C. Johnson FB Halamay
Score by periods
Massillon 7 0 7 7 21
Substitutions:
Massillon – Badarnza, qb; Grier, rh; James, rh; Resh, lh; Takacs, fb; Morrow, lg; Edie, rt; Jones, lt; Studer, le; Schludecker, re; McVay, c; Paul, rg.
St. Vincent’s – Cistone, qb; Ondecker, lg; Rossi, rh; Longville, lh; Shields, rg; Schlosser, lh; Whitmyer, lt; Moss, le; Cahill, rg; Leffler, qb; McMullen, fb; Wolfe, fb.
Touchdowns:
Massillon – Jacobs; Al Brown 2.
Points after touchdown:
Massillon – Schludecker 3 (placekicks).
Referee – Slutz.
Umpire – C. Rupp.
Head Linesman – Rainsberger.
Field Judge – Lobach.
Statistics
Mass. Akron
First downs 5 8
Passes 8 16
Passes completed 1 6
Had passes intercepted 2 2
Yards gained passing 9 52
Yards gained rushing 148 103
Total yards gained 157 155
Yards lost 13 47
Net yards gained 144 108
Times punted 4 7
Average punt (yards) 35.2 33.8
Times kicked off 4 1
Average kickoff (yards) 44.2 51
Yards punts returned 21 12
Yards kickoffs returned 91 61
Total kicks returned 112 73
Times fumbled 1 2
Lost ball on fumbles 1 0
Yards lost penalties 42 17
